Winter Feelings. . . Love and Loss

When I was 18 years old, I felt my first real loss ever.  At that point all of my Great-Grandparents had passed away, but for me, they were old, and I never connected so much with them.  I grew up next door to my first cousin, and he was really one of my best friends.  He and the guy that lived across the road.  They were my best friends for sure growing up.
We transformed while watching Transformers together, built forts in the woods, collected buckets of sand to fill in pot holes (ridiculous), chewed up worms for baby birds together, threw rocks at his mom, got caught with matches, got hurt together, smoked together, drown a cat together (really more innocent than it sounds - we were five and didn't know that cats couldn't swim), and got into trouble by grandma together.
When our family lost Shawn, we lost a lot.  Life changed forever during that time.  I know that sometimes say things like that but don't mean it, but for our family the hole in our hearts never really mended.  Nothing ever felt the same after that day in May.  I learned that we weren't invincible and that life was going to end for everyone, and even though I had known it before that day, nothing makes it more real than losing someone so close to you and in such a tragic way.
My kids are now the age Shawn was when he died...I wish I could make everything easy for them, and that they wouldn't have to feel the sadness that accompanies tragic loss.  The unfortunate truth is that death is a part of it, and we all feel the loss even when people say, "they're in a better place"...That still means they're in a different place than you are, and so it still hurts and it's hard, but day by day..the hurt lessens.  I've had the privileged of knowing a few people in my life that seem to think that burying emotion about loss is somehow handling it better than others.  I think that crying is okay and healthy, I think that feeling fully is the only way to get through what you are going through..I think that you should handle loss however you need to for you to feel it and move on to the next day....
Recently I made something special for my family for Christmas.  It included a lot of sappy stuff that brought back tons of memories and definitely some tears.  Gary said, "why do you do this to yourself?" of course he doesn't get it, but I like to remember and to feel sometimes, I'm not letting it take over my life, but sometimes it's okay to feel sad that I have lost some of the most important people in my life.
And why am I thinking of sad stuff so close to Christmas...well...this is the time of year that has been very sad for me in the past...Maybe even my greatest loss.

Anyway...just rambling..sometimes I do that..

Going tonight to watch some beautiful kids perform at our Winter Showcase...Yay!! Love the LBBT.

I love you all.  Have a smiley evening.